{"id":5853,"date":"2015-11-16T09:40:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T16:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therealdaily.com\/?p=5853"},"modified":"2015-11-16T09:40:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T16:40:45","slug":"can-you-be-sued-595k-for-your-customers-data-being-hacked-yup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/real-estate-tech\/can-you-be-sued-595k-for-your-customers-data-being-hacked-yup\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you be sued $595K for your customer’s data being hacked? Yup."},"content":{"rendered":"

When a hacker gets caught, it\u2019s not only the digital mischief-maker who gets into hot water. Sometimes the company that got hacked has to pay the price as well. <\/p>\n

Such is the case of Cox Communications, a cable, internet, and telephone provider whose system was hacked last August, exposing the personal information of an undisclosed number of customers. The company has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $595,000 to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for failing to report the security breach. <\/p>\n

<\/i> Read also: About the Internet of Things: Even teakettles are vulnerable<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"bar\"<\/p>\n

Personal info given to fake website<\/h2>\n

A hacker from the notorious Lizard Squad was able to access Cox customers\u2019 personal information by contacting a third party contractor, posing as a representative from Cox. The hacker tricked the contractor into using her personal login on a fake site disguised as the Cox website. The same ploy was used on a Cox tech support staff member, giving hackers access to a wealth of customer personal information, including names, mailing and email addresses, security questions and answers, PIN numbers, and partial Social Security and driver\u2019s license numbers. <\/p>\n

The hacker proceeded to post personal information of eight customers on social media sites, and 28 customers had their passwords changed, locking them out of their accounts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cox did not inform the FCC<\/h2>\n

Said Travis LeBlanc, an enforcement officer with the FCC, \u201c[t]his investigation shows the real harm that can be done by a digital identity thief with enough information to change your passwords, lock you out of your own accounts, post our personal data on the web, and harass you through social media.\u201d <\/p>\n

Six days after Cox became aware of the breach, the company contacted the FBI, leading to the arrest of a suspect. However, Cox failed to fulfill its legal obligation to inform the FCC, as well as to inform the customers affected by the situation. <\/p>\n

The repercussions<\/h2>\n

As recompense, Cox will pay a fine to the FCC, and will offer one free year of credit monitoring to the affected customers. <\/p>\n

Cox\u2019s goof is a reminder that companies need to do all they can to protect customers who trust them with their personal information.<\/p>\n

#Hacking<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The precedent has been set: after their website was hacked, Cox Communications suffered some major losses and still has to pay up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337314,"featured_media":5022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[690,689],"class_list":["post-5853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-tech","tag-fcc","tag-hacking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/08\/mortgage-cash-money.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5853"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5866,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5853\/revisions\/5866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}